IDS Enterprise SystemsElectronic Parts Catalog

The smarter automotive parts catalog.

IDS EPC is a real-time, online Electronic Parts Catalog (EPC). It has been developed in partnership with our automotive customers and takes advantage of decades of experience in delivering aftermarket automotive solutions, especially in spare parts inventory interpretation and management. IDS EPC also uses the latest IT technology to provide a robust and accessible business solution.

Drive ahead of your competitors

Selling spare parts and accessories is one of the more profitable areas of the automotive business. If you are a manufacturer, distributor, wholesaler or dealer who supplies and sells parts to dealers, fleets, service workshops, independent retailers and consumers, you know that it’s a competitive market.

Supplying the correct part and supplying it in the shortest possible time-frame maximizes profit, ensures repeat business and reduces overall costs. Parts catalogs by necessity are complex and require both maintenance and regular updates to ensure accurate data. Due to complexities such as the large number of models and available options, expert parts interpreters must sometimes answer complex enquiries.

These challenges can be counter-productive in meeting critical business objectives such as accurate parts interpretation and the ability to achieve high service levels with a low rate of parts returns.

The fulfilment of these objectives encourages loyalty, brings in repeat business and prevents customers from seeking alternate suppliers.

IDS Enterprise Systems Electronic Parts Catalog (IDS EPC) makes it easy for you to publish interactive parts catalogs that keep your customers happy while helping you to boost revenue and maintain profit margins.

IDS Electronic Parts Catalog

A parts catalog that improves business.

Simplify your parts business

IDS Enterprise Systems developed IDS EPC to simplify the whole business of publishing and maintaining parts catalogs with the specific aim of helping you meet these business objectives.

IDS EPC allows parts catalogs to be deployed electronically and over the Internet. Updates to parts information, stock availability and pricing are available in real time. As a result, there is no need to publish expensive catalog updates on paper or via electronic media such as CDs or DVDs. This alone can provide substantial cost savings.

Integrated e-commerce and Internet

IDS EPC has many other features that simplify parts interpretation. It also allows for the inclusion of associated parts information, features integrated e-commerce with shopping cart functionality, and can be integrated with dealer, distributor or manufacturing IT systems.

Best of all, the solution is based on Internet technologies so authorized dealers and users can access your catalogs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week via a web browser. That means IDS EPC keeps on working for you – and reliably generating new sales – around the clock.

IDS Enterprise Systems is No. 1 in the automotive business. It was the obvious choice. Because it specialises in IT automotive solutions, it offers tailor-made features that its competitors can’t match.- Rod Matthews, CFO, Ateco Automotive

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IDS Electronic Parts Catalog

Publishing catalogs electronically yields widespread benefits for parts manufacturers, distributors and wholesalers.

Goodbye paper, hello sales!

Parts catalogs published through IDS EPC utilize advanced navigation functions that greatly simplify the search process and minimize the time to find the correct part(s). With IDS EPC you can locate parts, accessories and vehicle options using a range of powerful search and navigation tools.

Multiple search options

Besides part number, parts can be also be located by searching for a single category or a combination of them. These include vehicle type, model, parts description, code, stock number, production date, chassis number, vehicle identification number (VIN), engine number, registration number and a variety of other ways. Alternatively, customers can drill down through the Explorer-style navigation tree from vehicle type to model details, to parts categories and then to individual parts, accessories and vehicle options.

Features that help customers

IDS Enterprise Systems has built many such easy-to-use features into IDS EPC – features that make it more likely that dealers, workshops and retailers will be able to quickly locate the required part.

For example, each individual user can customize the user interface for their mode of operation. Frequently used parts can be stored in their own windows for immediate access. Searches can be saved and recalled for later use.

This translates to fewer returns, as well as a higher level of customer satisfaction

The Australian truck market is highly sophisticated and competitive in nature. MFTBA’s customers expect quality products supported with quality service and effective communications. Partnering with IDS Enterprise Systems to develop an online parts catalog allows Fuso to increase market share of genuine parts in a competitive market.

- Jeff de Ridder, GM Info Systems, Mitsubishi Fuso Truck and Bus Company Australia|

IDS Electronic Parts Catalog

Lead your customers to the right parts: your parts

IDS EPC’s unique hotspot diagrams, hyperlinked parts descriptions and comprehensive search facilities give dealers and customers confidence they’ve found the right part.

Along with hotspot diagrams, hyperlinks and search facilities, IDS EPC has additional features that let you assist your dealers and customers in innovative ways.

You can publish model photographs, exploded engine diagrams, wiring schematics and other illustrations that have clickable hotspots. A customer simply moves the mouse pointer over a diagram and clicks on an area of interest to navigate to the next level.

Zooming in on the details

Hotspots can link directly to other diagrams or to detailed descriptions. For example, a customer can click on an engine piston ring and immediately see its specifications, the default quantity and related parts bulletins. That makes it much easier for a user to identify the correct part and quantity.

Parts descriptions can include a wide range of information. You can include price and availability information, special offers and deals, news about coming products, bulletins about regulatory issues, detailed specifications of tolerances, fitting instructions, guidance on techniques and tools, and any additional information deemed as useful or important.

To allow information to be passed on to third parties, any image can be printed in either high or low resolution together with the associated search details for later reference.

Supersessions

Parts are automatically linked into supersession chains. The supersession chain displays graphically the complete part history, including complex chains that consist of one to many or many to one.

IDS Electronic Parts Catalog

A picture can be worth a thousand partsLead your customers to the right parts: your parts

Encouraging customers to buy

IDS EPC is not just about helping your customers find the correct part. Its built-in shopping facilities make it more likely they’ll buy that part from you – and not from someone else.

IDS EPC gives your catalogs a fully featured shopping and ordering function that allows authorized users to place orders or complete behind-the-counter transactions with just a few mouse clicks.

Convenient shopping

The shopping basket can be displayed and reviewed at any time. IDS EPC allows one transaction to include parts from multiple vehicles or models within the catalog, thereby saving time. (For example, a repair shop making a bulk order.)

Further time savings can be realized by saving partly completed orders temporarily and recalling them for completion at a later time. Any saved transaction can be appended to a new order transaction as required.

Dealer system integration

If IDS EPC is integrated with the Dealer Management System and/or to the distributor’s spare parts system, stock availability from one or both can be displayed. The decision to supply from dealer stock or distributor stock can be based on the customer’s delivery requirements and can be made during and as part of the order transaction.

IDS EPC can calculate taxes and shipping charges that need to be paid and inform the customer of these costs at order time, streamlining the whole process of invoicing and account settlement.

Secure access to information

IDS EPC has multiple authorization levels by user type to determine the level of information that a user is allowed to access, including pricing and stock availability.

The same process can apply to authorized online users, allowing them to locate and order parts using IDS EPC’s e-commerce capability.

IDS Enterprise Systems had the overall product and ability to meet our business needs. They listened to us, performed a detailed fit analysis and demonstrated that the solution was flexible, yet proven.

- John Watkins, CEO, Power Farming|IDS Electronic Parts Catalog

IDS Enterprise Systems Electronic Parts Catalog does the work...

Using the latest technology

IDS EPC uses the very latest Internet technology to make sure you get a fast return on your investment with the minimum of disruption to your existing business.

IDS EPC is developed in Java (J2EE), making it hardware independent. The software can be run on a central computer server or a distributed network. You also have the option of letting IDS Enterprise Systems host the technology for you.

Web access and web services

Customers access the catalogs and the shopping function through a standard web browser via a private intranet or a normal Internet connection. IDS EPC provides full user and password security and includes features such as multiple language support, currency settings and date formats for worldwide deployment.The back-end web services provide integration points to the business systems your organization already runs.

IDS EPC simplifies the publishing and maintenance of parts catalogs, makes it easy for customers to find and buy parts, and is designed to give you a rapid return on your IT investment – together with the smartest parts catalog solution on the market.

IDS Electronic Parts Catalog

...for you and your customers

IDS Enterprise Systems has over 20 years history of providing world-class solutions to distributors of many of the largest automotive brands including Audi, Daimler Chrysler, Fuso, General Motors, Jaguar, Porsche, Proton, Toyota and Volkswagen. IDS Enterprise Systems is part of Pentana Solutions.

Pentana Solutions is a leading communications and information technology company that specialises in the development of software solutions and services for the global automotive and associated industries. Pentana Solutions offers a variety of Dealer Management Systems, plus a range of specialty innovations including CRM, Web Services, Document Management, Consulting, Network Services and tailored solutions for every area of the dealership. We operate as a true one-stop-shop to meet all of the customers’ information technology requirements, incorporating the highest levels of customer care with genuine customer-focused solutions.

Our products provide comprehensive automotive functionality with a high degree of flexibility to adapt business process and rules, specifically developed for automotive OEMs, NSCs, importers, distributors, logistics providers and dealerships.

IDS Enterprise Systems solutions are designed to achieve efficiencies across your business and allow customers online, instantaneous access to information such as warranty claims and enquiries, product tracking, allocation and registrations, parts enquiries and ordering. The high functionality of IDS Enterprise Systems software enables business processes to be fully automated, integrating e-procurement with effective supply chain management.

IDS Electronic Parts Catalog

Australia - Sydney1A Level 2, 16-18 Wentworth St,Parramatta, NSW 2150Tel: +61 2 8852 1100Fax: +61 2 9633 3875

Australia - Melbourne549 Blackburn RoadMount Waverley, VIC 3149Tel: +61 3 9535 2222Fax: +61 3 9535 2274

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North America250 Monroe NW Suite 400Grand Rapids, MI 49503Tel: +1 616 827 7388

info@ids.com.auids.com.au

Copyright ©2011 Pentana Solutions Pty Ltd. IDS, IDSe42, IDS EPC and DistributorPRO are all trademarks of IDS Enterprise Systems. This manual may not be reproduced, copied (except for a single archive copy), used, disclosed, transferred, (including sold, leased, or rented) adapted or modified,

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